Untangling Knots

Weaving in the Ends on Myrna

The last parts of making a sweater are always my least favorite because they’re not actual knitting. Weaving in ends and attaching buttons are not super fun in my opinion. You have my permission to grumble at your project while you do this. I always do.

OAL_Myrna_Finishing_Tools

I use two different tools to weave in my ends. I typically favor the crochet hook. It’s slower to do the actual weaving with it, but you don’t have to fiddle with threading yarn through a needle, and it’s great if you didn’t leave yourself long enough ends. The yarn needle is the more traditional way to go about doing things. The weaving process goes faster with this guy, but I dislike threading the needle, so I generally don’t use if for projects with a lot of ends to weave in.

OAL_Myrna_Finishing_Ends

With seamless projects, sometimes it can be hard to figure out where to hide the ends, but it’s easy on Myrna. I weave all of my ends into the selvage stitches that end up on the wrong side after you pick up stitches. Like seams, these selvage stitches are the perfect place to hide your ends.

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Andi

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Comments

8 responses to “Weaving in the Ends on Myrna”

  1. Aleksandra @ Liveaboard Takes the Suburbs

    Two questions about weaving in ends:
    1. Is there some reason that you can’t do this as you go along? The tails on my Myrna are driving me nuts. I was thinking about weaving everything in before I start sleeve 2. Is there a reason no one does this? Or is it a personal preference thing?
    2. Is it acceptable to use the ends you’re weaving in to try to hide mistakes? For instance, there are some yarnover-sized holes in my underarm. Are you supposed to use new yarn to try to stitch these together?

    Sorry if these are dumb questions. I taught myself to knit using Internet tutorials and this is only my second sweater! 🙂

    Reply
    1. Andi

      If you want to hide you stitches in the selvage, you really can’t weave in your ends until you’re done. If you don’t mind using another method, you can weave them in whenever you want to. Weaving in the ends will make it more difficult to rip back or ladder a stitch down if you notice a mistake, however.

      I’m not sure what might have caused your sweater to have holes so I can’t tell you how you’re “supposed to” fix it, but I can’t think of a reason why you couldn’t use your ends.

      Reply
      1. Aleksandra @ Liveaboard Takes the Suburbs

        Oh, the holes were caused by my inexpert picking up of stitches in the underarm. It’s still something I’m working on, but they’re much smaller than they were in my first sweater, so there’s that! 🙂

        That’s a really good point about making it more difficult to undo if you’ve wound everything in already. But for stitches up by the shoulder/back join and at the bottom, I think I should be safe.

        Thanks for the answers!!!

        Reply
  2. Cari

    I really hate the non-knitting finishing off parts of sweater making. This is one reason why I’ve loved making up your patterns. I may still have to weave in the ends, but seamless designs mean fewer ends, and no seams to sew together.

    Reply
  3. Maeve

    What techniques do you use when you do the actual weaving? I know there are many methods for bringing the yarn ends through the fabric (I think the purl bee blog had a post) but I always seem to have the problem of the ends unwinding and poking back out.

    Reply
    1. Andi

      When I’m weaving into a selvage edge or seam, I just do a basic running stitch because no one is going to see the selvage. I think perhaps the key thing is that I always go through and trim away any misbehaving ends after I block my knitting. Once your sweater is blocked, the ends are usually settled into where they will remain.

      Reply
      1. Maeve

        Thanks, I will try that out on my next project.

        Reply
  4. Jesse

    Finishing is the worst! Just a quick tip for you or anyone who might not have heard it before: if you wrap the end of the yarn around the outside of the needle eye, and pinch the yarn underneath it, then slide the needle out while holding the pinched yarn, it’s very easy to thread no matter the weight of the yarn.

    Reply

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